Goumas: Caramels (Fin)

Guess what?

In this post, I will finally complete the review of the box of chocolates that Goumas sent me to review. I already reviewed TWENTY TWO PIECES. That’s a lot of chocolate to eat. I work hard for this blog. Never doubt it.

Today reflects even more work, as I bring you reviews of four caramel pieces to conclude my evaluation of Goumas’ work. I’ll start with two chocolate-free that found their way into my box. In case you, are, like, allergic to chocolate (in which case, why on earth are you reading this blog?). And if that is the case, check out this plain vanilla caramel.

This caramel is a beautiful texture that is neither excessively liquid nor too stiff. It is soft, and melts nicely, with the sweet, creamy flavor literally dissolving in your mouth. There is a bit of vanilla flavor here, and a bit more could enhance the flavor to better offset the sugar, but the ideal texture makes it easy for me to look past that.

And also makes it easy for me to dive into another plain caramel: a walnut caramel.

The caramel is again well-textured with a wonderful melt and pleasing softness; the walnuts are crunchy but add little taste. Instead, they add an enjoyable texture contrast, leaving the caramel to carry the flavor. The flavor is quite sweet and strong on the vanilla and cream; it seems that a bit of salt might cut through the sugar, but the vanilla cuts back on it sufficiently. As I enjoy the texture contrast of the nuts, I might select this over the plain caramel.

Or get some of each. It’s reasonable. Your diet is supposed to have variety, or something like that.

Now while sampling those two chocolates, I kept thinking “if only these were covered in chocolate, they’d be even more delightful.” Well, fear not, two chocolate-covered caramels were in the sample box. The first one I evaluated was the milk chocolate sea salt caramel, which had a pleasing creamy and nutty aroma.

The milk chocolate is perfectly matched to the texture of the caramel, and has a blended flavor of vanilla and cream.

The caramel has a nice, moderate texture – neither hard nor runny – and has a creamy flavor with a hint of vanilla. Interestingly, it has minimal salt flavor, and it appears that the only source of salt in this piece is in the salt atop the chocolate. This means that, while the chocolate and caramel meld together nicely, the salt isn’t uniformly distributed; the better approach would be to incorporate the salt into the caramel itself and decrease the exterior salt. If the piece were constructed that way, I’d currently be begging for a pound of these and these alone.

One. More. Piece. This is like finishing a long run. Except tastier, as the conclusion in this case involves a dark chocolate sea salt caramel.

The couverture is a bit bitter, with a strong vanilla flavor with caramel undertones.

Again, the salt is not present in the caramel, only in super intense bursts from the exterior. The caramel also melts away faster than the chocolate in this case, which isn’t really ideal – I prefer a uniform melt. I would have to go for the milk chocolate version over this one.

Except that after the sugar load of reviewing an entire pound of chocolate, I won’t want caramel for a while.

And by “a while,” I mean “hours.”

Salted caramel: salt IN the caramel, or ON the caramel?